By David Vitrano

L’Observateur

LAPLACE – It’s election season again, and River Parishes residents will be going to the polls two more times before the end of November.

The first of three scheduled elections took place on Aug. 28, and most results were rather predictable. Senate candidates David Vitter and Charlie Melancon easily won their primaries, and voter turnout was extremely low, estimated at less than 10 percent.

Accordingly, last week L’Observateur asked visitors to www.lobservateur.com whether they had voted and why they stayed away from the polls if they did not vote.

Perhaps local residents are more civic-minded than those of other areas of the state or perhaps newspaper readers care about politics a little more than the average citizen, but nearly 30 percent of the poll’s respondents said they voted in the Aug. 28 election. Of course, that still leaves two-thirds of respondents saying they did not vote.

Of the non-voters, over a third said they did not know an election was going on. Another 20 percent said they usually do not vote in these primary-level elections but would be voting in subsequent elections.

Non-voters also had other reasons for not casting ballots. The weather that Saturday was rainy, especially in the morning hours, and 5 percent of respondents said that kept them at home. An equal number said they did not know where to go to cast votes.

A full breakdown of responses follows:

• 29 percent of respondents chose “I voted.”

• 5 percent of respondents chose “The weather kept me away from the polls.”

• 26 percent of respondents chose “I did not know about the election.”

• 5 percent of respondents chose “I did not know where to vote.”

• 13 percent of respondents chose “I never vote in these lesser elections but plan to vote in October and November.”

• 21 percent of respondents chose “Other.”